They stood in the stillness before it—the gate that wasn't a gate.
It breathed.
Bone, tooth, and wet veined flesh made a perfect archway, each fang as long as Perseus's forearm, curved inward like a maw waiting to feed. The surrounding stone had been long since overtaken—slick with memory-sap and tangled in spore-root tendrils that pulsed faintly in tune with the heartbeat of the thing below. It didn't speak. It didn't move.
But it watched.
Boo stepped forward, her sabers crossed behind her back. Their jewel-encrusted blades hummed faintly, ghostlight curling from the edges in whispered arcs. Her flintlock pistol—polished obsidian and bone with golden skulls carved into the cylinder—rested at her hip. Her bodysuit was nearly silent as she moved, the unknown leather gripping her body like it had been poured on, lifting and shaping her like an unspoken promise. Every movement was danger wrapped in beauty.
Nyxia frowned. "It's alive."
"Worse," Boo murmured. "It remembers."
Perseus took a step closer, then recoiled slightly. "It's reading us."
"It wants a toll," Boo said.
"A soul?" Cipher asked from the rear, adjusting his visor.
"No. A name."
The Vault pulsed at her words. Its inner lining of flesh trembled. Somewhere behind its teeth, a wet grinding began.
Boo didn't wait.
She stepped forward until her toes kissed the edge of the maw.
"I give it freely," she said.
Nyxia reached for her arm. "Wait. What do you—"
"My name," Boo said, not turning. "Not Boo. That's not who I was. That's who I chose to be after the fall."
A beat.
Perseus's expression shifted.
"You don't have to—"
"I do," Boo whispered. "Because the girl who bore my true name died when Ves'Sariel betrayed us and took my brother. Rhelos was the only one who ever used it. And he's not here anymore."
The Vault opened.
Not fast. Not slow.
A deep, hollow sound like breathing through bone. The teeth pulled apart with a wet slickness. The air shifted.
A voice, soft as silk and rot, whispered: "It is forgotten."
Boo stumbled. Just once. Then straightened. "Let's go."
The party moved into the dark beyond.
The Vault was not a place.
It was a wound.
The moment they crossed the threshold, it felt as if time thickened. Gravity pressed harder. The walls bled—not blood, but dripping strands of viscous memory. Glyphs hovered midair like smoke frozen in time, flickering with color only visible if you weren't looking directly at them.
Nyxia stepped carefully. The air resisted motion, as though soaked in intent.
Loque pressed close to her, his tail looped protectively around her legs even as he prowled forward. The further they went, the more restless he grew. His body shimmered constantly now, spectral and unstable, like he was being pulled between two worlds. The Vault didn't recognize him as alive—or perhaps it did, and wanted him anyway.
Perseus murmured, "The Void is thick here."
"Not Void," Cipher said under his breath. "Reflected matter. Folded cause. This place isn't just remembering us. It's rehearsing us."
They passed a corridor where the walls formed crude murals. Living ones. As they watched, Nyxia saw herself—eyes hollow, bow slack, being consumed by violet flame. Across from it, Boo knelt before a throne of bone. Something wearing Ves'Sariel's skin crowned her with rot.
"No more visions," Boo muttered, looking away. "Forward."
Their steps quickened.
Nyxia touched her armor, now cool to the touch, the runes at the seams softly glowing. The voices here didn't echo in words. They crawled—up her spine, into her skull, across her memories. Whispers of people she'd forgotten, mistakes she'd buried. The time she'd run from a burning village instead of fighting. The night she turned her face when Rhelos asked for help.
The Vault pulsed.
Then reality buckled.
The corridor split.
It didn't branch. It fractured.
Sound dropped out—no footsteps, no breath, no heartbeat. A moment of zero.
And then: separation.
Each member of the group stumbled into their own passageway, swallowed by the Vault's will. Boo vanished in a ripple of dark velvet. Cipher's scream cut off mid-word. Mirell laughed—a laugh like glass breaking in syrup—before disappearing. Talon never made a sound.
Nyxia turned.
Perseus was gone.
So was Loque.
She stood alone. Not in a corridor. In a chamber pulsing with red spores and bioluminescence.
And Ves'Sariel was waiting.
She stood in the center of the room like a forgotten statue, all grace and gravity. Her robe shimmered like it was underwater, veins of violet twisting through black silk. Her hair floated as if caught in a dream current. Her smile was the kind you gave someone just before you broke their heart.
"You came," Ves said softly.
Nyxia's bow was already rising. "Of course I did."
"I missed you."
Nyxia fired.
The arrow struck air. Ves didn't dodge—space simply folded, warped. The arrow twisted out of existence inches from her.
"You're still trying to hurt me." Ves's voice was gentle, like talking to a child who couldn't yet understand.
"You earned worse."
"I see the armor fits," Ves murmured, circling. "He gave you my gift."
Nyxia kept her aim steady. "It's not yours."
"Oh, but it is. I made it for you. Every thread soaked in memory. Every rune carved from a dream you left behind. I kept them, Nyxia. I remembered you. I built this place for you."
Nyxia pivoted, keeping distance. The floor here felt less like stone and more like bone over water—soft and subtly breathing. "Then you built a tomb."
Ves's face twitched. "You still think this is about revenge. It's not. It's a ritual. I'm making something new."
She raised her hand. Voidlight sparked, then arced toward Nyxia in a screaming spiral. Nyxia dove left, rolling under it and loosing another arrow. This time she aimed low—striking Ves's ankle.
A ripple.
The impact unmade itself. Ves glided backward as if rewinding.
"You never could just talk," Ves said sadly. "Even when we were in love."
"That wasn't love," Nyxia snapped. "That was grooming dressed in silk."
Ves's smile broke.
She launched forward—not just moving, but collapsing distance. One blink, and she was there, fingers brushing Nyxia's cheek. The touch burned—not with fire, but memory.
"I remember the way you looked the first time you saw me under moonlight," Ves whispered. "I remember your voice when you said you'd never leave."
Nyxia's breath caught. Her limbs locked. The memory surged—a rooftop, Ves beside her, stars above and a future promised.
"You don't belong in that memory," she growled, shaking it off.
Nyxia slammed her knee into Ves's ribs and surged forward with brutal momentum, shoulder-tackling the priestess into the wall of the chamber. The armor flared—runes igniting.
The Vault screamed.
The chamber responded, birthing tendrils of warped flesh that lashed from the walls toward Nyxia. She dove through them, drawing a short blade and slashing one clean. It hissed. Burned.
"Still fighting," Ves gasped. "You could have been anything."
"I am," Nyxia spat. "I'm not yours."
Ves's face cracked—not in pain, but in rage. She conjured a spear of twisted bone, hurling it like a comet. Nyxia caught it on the side of her armor—it pierced but didn't impale.
She spun, drawing on the latent power of the armor's sigils. Her arrow ignited with memoryfire—flame that burned regrets.
"One last shot," she whispered.
She fired.
Ves tried to warp—but this arrow wasn't bound by space. It curved, remembered where Ves would be, and struck her full in the chest.
The priestess screamed.
The chamber warped again, as if in pain. But Ves didn't fall. She staggered—bleeding—not ichor, but black smoke. Her eyes were wide. Human again. Scared.
"You said you'd never leave," she whispered.
Nyxia stepped forward. "You're right."
She drew her blade.
"But I also said I'd stop you."
The Vault pulsed.
The walls collapsed inward—closing the fight with a roar of memory and light.
And the final battle began.